Africa Lite

It is now the end of the school term and I am Pooped! (that's right, with a capital P).  I started out the term by moving into my house, getting my schedule three days late, and making lesson plans.  But that really isn't such a big deal because the students don't really show up for the first two weeks of classes anyway.  The ministry of education says that students have two weeks to show up for school before they can be expelled.  They also cannot be held back at all for poor academic performance, and the only legitimate way to have a student removed from the school is for behavior or failing to pay school fees.  There really is more to explain, but to keep it short, Uganda has fully implemented the "No Child Left Behind" act.

So the first two weeks of the term were basically spent watching a few of the more serious students doing the general maintenance work around the school (mowing grass, cleaning class rooms, etc.) and getting all my little ducks in a row at my own home.  I needed to mow grass, clear a path to the latrine, clean, put in a ceiling, buy stuff for cooking, pick up tools, and build a fence.  A lot to do when you are supposed to be learning students names, making lesson plans, and grading homework.  Keep in mind that staying up late to do the work doesn't happen because as soon as the sun is gone, work stops.

I obviously wasn't going to be able to accomplish all that in two months let alone two weeks.  So I focused on my job, teaching.  In my freshmen (they call it senior one, or S1 for short) math I have two lessons three times a week.  Each lesson is 80 minutes long and is supposed to have around 65 students.  However, my lessons are usually in the morning so they start 40 minutes late because the 35 students who do arrive, are extremely late.  Needless to say, I get frustrated a lot.  However, there are highlights.  Some of my kids are truly interested and come and ask questions.  They even come to my house on Saturdays and Sundays to do practice problems.  I also teach S2 (equivalent of sophomores, also 65 in a lesson) in physics and I have been able to do some awesome demonstrations with them.  I got some clear hose and demonstrated a siphon, I got a straw and demonstrated a venturi, and I used a piece of paper to show how an airplane wing causes lift.  Things that the other physics teachers had never end thought of let alone seen.  So all in all, I have around 230 students who I am still getting to know, some of whom I never will, and others whom I am extremely grateful to have gotten to know.

I don't like teaching inside the classroom.  I am fairly convinced that it may be one of the least efficient ways to convey knowledge, and understanding is all but none existent.  My preferred method is when they come to my house and I can use a stick to scratch in the dirt, use some bamboo and a machete to build a demonstration on the spot, but most importantly to answer questions they have and do it in such a way they have to ask another question to understand the answer.  Mwahahaha, I'm such and evil-genius-educator.

On top of my students from my school, I am also tutoring a girl in the evenings in math and sciences so she can pass the national exam at the end of the year.  She was in her fourth year in secondary school when she got pregnant a few months ago.  Because, while it is ok for teachers to come to school drunk, it is not ok for students to come to school pregnant.  She isn't the brightest star in the sky, but despite her set backs, she still wants to take the exam at the end of the year, carry out the pregnancy and then go onto the advanced level.  I give here a standing ovation every time she comes to my house simply for her fortitude.  Especially since her father, and her new "husband" aren't really keen on her bothering with education.  Her name is Pearl.

Then I have the one and only entrepreneur in Uganda living in my community.  This guy is on the ball.  He is aware that all the billions of foreign dollars that are pouring into Uganda won't last forever.  In fact, he has already seen it begin to wain.  So before the well drys up, he wants to start a company.  A lot of infrastructure still needs to build around the North, so he thinks a construction company could do very well while people are still building churches, schools, clinics, shops, roads, and other such things.  On top of this, he wants to begin using some technology from South Africa that uses a hydrolic press, 98% local dirt, and 2% cement.  This way of making bricks is 30% cheaper (no burning of clay), it is stronger, lasts longer, and takes less time.  He wants to be ahead of the curve by jumping on it now.  All of the stuff he has done without me.  What he wants now is an engineering consultant to help him get off the ground.  I'm not fronting any money, I'm not putting my name on anything, and he isn't asking me for that either.  I think he is pretty genuine and really just wants me to tell him that his grand plan will work, and perhaps having a white dude helping his company will get him more business.  In any case, I like where he is going with this, I can see the benefits of this technology, and I like him as a person, so I'm on board.

I still haven't gotten my solar death ray to work. I finally got a busted six foot diameter satellite dish about a month ago, but the only reflective material I was able to get was aluminum paint which did not work.  It would only make your hand hot, not light wood on fire.  But now I am in the capitol and here they have everything, so hopefully I'll be able to get some aluminum foil at least.

My windmill is on hold at the moment.  The local community is a little leery of me doing anything with or near the borehole-well.  The school shares the well with all the villagers out of kindness and to keep them happy and so if I go and start putting a big scary windmill on it they are afraid it will damage their nearest source of water.  That is a legitimate fear I suppose, as clean water is still not an easy thing to get around here, so I will have to do some more sweet talking with the locals and the school to get that one going.

Now I am in the capital city for some Peace Corps training, enjoying a pool, beer and friends.  I have a minor infection in my hand from using a hand hoe to dig up (plow) a half acre of garden.  I got my beans, corn, onions, cassava, and potatoes in the ground in exchange for a giant bruise on the palm of my hand which then turned infected.  Part of it was that the ground was really hard, part of it was digging like a man possessed to vent my frustrations with the ministry of education, and part of it was "if your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough."  So my bad bruise turned into an infection, which I didn't know could happen, but did.  After it swelled up to the size of a balloon, I realized it wasn't just a bruise and had the doctor at the local clinic lance the abscess.  The doctor used a local anesthetic, but knelt on my wrist just in case.  The local anesthetic did the trick because it was a world better than when I was trying to squeeze it out myself.  Story short, I now have a 1/4 inch hole in my hand that is healing nicely.  Obviously I can even use it to type.  Oh, it was my right hand by the way.  If it was my left, I probably would have had to see the doctor a lot sooner.

So that brings me to the tittle of this entry: Africa Lite.  I was talking with a few other volunteers who had already served in west Africa.  Guinea, Togo, Mauritania, and others are worlds off worse than Uganda.  So even though I have pretty much listed nothing but set backs in this entry, I definitely have it easy compared to what they had.  Even when compared to other East African countries like Kenya, we have it made in the shade.  I just read in the local paper about how Kenyans come to Uganda and make a killing in nearly any venture they try, and Ugandans who go to Kenya... come back.  Thinking about it, life here really isn't too dang bad in a simple "are you living or are you dieing" kind of sense.  You throw seeds on the ground twice a year.  Two hours in the morning you tend to them and you harvest twice a year.  A mud hut only costs labor, and most medical supplies are so cheap that people are dieing of malaria more often because they don't like doctors than because they can't afford treatment.  So if you start thinking that you might be sorta be tempted into thinking that I have it rough...  DON'T!  I actually have a bigger house, more pay (relative to the standard of living), and better health care than at any other time in my life thus far.  I do manual labor because I like it, and my job could be much, much worse. So T.I.A.L.

Well, that is about all.  I am anxious to go back to my home and garden and begin lessons for next term and correct all the mistakes I made this term.

In laughter, larder, and love
Dave